Issues

Select an issue that is currently in the news. Pretend that you have been invited to speak at a conference addressing that issue. What key points would you like to make? What important background about the issue would you include? Find a news item about the issue that you think everyone concerned with it should read or know about. If possible, with a group interested in the same issue, carry out a mini-conference.

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Photo Stories

Find an interesting photograph in the newspaper. Without reading any of the information that accompanies it, make up a story about the people pictured, what’s going on and why. After completing a draft of your story, go back to the newspaper and read the photograph’s caption and any other related news items. Use that research to enhance your fiction writing. Revise your story. Have someone else read the story, and then show them the photo. Talk about ways to further improve the writing. Again make revisions and put the story in final form, mounting it on a piece of poster board with the photograph that inspired it.

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